2025 – the Year of Significant Changes

By: Ruth King

Some of you have huge changes because of geographic issues – the effects of the hurricanes in Florida, North Carolina, and other areas.

Others have huge changes in personnel or family.

We have a new political administration – and no, this isn’t a political article.

Stuff happens.  It’s how we react to the “happening stuff” that is important.  If you get totally emotional about it – you can’t think rationally.  One of the best trainers used to teach, “It is an event.  You decide how you will react to the event.”

Think about where you want to go, what you want to do, and write it down.  Just the simple act of writing it down will help propel you to get the goal done…even if you don’t think about it consciously.

Let’s look at what we can do rather than complain about what we can’t control.

Think about the positive things you want to do and write them down.  Just the simple act of writing it down will help propel you to get the goals done…even if you don’t think about it consciously.

Many years ago I taught a class called BOSS (Business Owner’s Survival School).  Part of that class was the Jim Rohn goal setting process (it really works).  So, an owner wrote down his one, three, and five-year goals during the session.  When he got back, he threw the goals into a drawer.  A few years later he was cleaning out that drawer and discovered the goals.  To his amazement he accomplished most of them without consciously thinking about them!

Here are three things you probably want to write the answers to:

1. What net profit per unit or hour do you want in 2025? – For each billable or revenue generating hour how much do you want to earn in profit? And, how many billable hours do you want to have?
2. What sales revenue do you want to generate in 2025? (That comes from billable hours)
3. Are you happy? If you are, what will you do to stay happy?  If not, what will you commit to so that you achieve happiness.  If you are not happy, then as the owner, your business suffers.  Happiness is a precursor to business success!

Answer these three questions in writing.  And if you want, throw the answers in a drawer.  Look at it in December, 2030 and see what you have accomplished!

Once you’ve answered the three questions above – answer these questions about the financial part of your business:

1. Are you getting your monthly financial statements in a timely manner? If you are not getting your financial statements within 15 to at most 20 days after the month has ended you are doing yourself a disservice. It makes absolutely no sense to get January’s information in March.  By this time any minor issues which you would have seen may have become major crises. I’ve made it easy to review financial statements in less than 10 minutes a month: www.financiallyfit.business
2. Are your financials formatted in a manner that helps you operate your business rather than makes it easy for your accountant to do your taxes?  Many accountants put revenues, expenses, assets, and liabilities in a format which makes it easy to do taxes but impossible for you to check your business operations easily.   For example, an accountant combined many overhead accounts of one of my clients simply to make it easier for him to track…his reasoning: the client didn’t need that many accounts. My response:  Who’s paying who?
   You need the information so that you can make good decisions on labor productivity, gross margins, and overhead issues.  If your accountant can’t or won’t put the information you give him in a format that helps you operate your business, your goal for 2025 should be to find another accountant.
3. Are your financial statements accurate?  This means that you’ve taken an accurate inventory at the end of the year, you have all of your payables and receivables current in the months that they were incurred, and accurate job costing for all departments.  Remember that garbage in equals garbage out.

   If you need to work on any of these areas, then they should be the initial financial goals that you set for 2025.

Ruth King is known globally as the “Profitability Master,” and is a a thought leader in entrepreneurship and business. Her books have been recognized as among the greatest in numerous industries. Learn more about all her business activities here. 

Follow Ruth: www.ruthking.info

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